


2:01am

by neverendingworlds



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Mankai Company, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Streamer Gamer Bros, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26987365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverendingworlds/pseuds/neverendingworlds
Summary: Itaru knows he's a goner from the moment he can't separate online from IRL anymore. Thoughts of NEO - of Banri - leak out from their mid-commute texts and into his brain, floating around in the space once occupied by only 2D.Banita Week SFW Day 3: Distance
Relationships: Chigasaki Itaru/Settsu Banri
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43
Collections: Banita Week 2020





	2:01am

**_1:40am today - NEO_ ** **: if i stay up any later ill hate myself in class tmrw but hey gg** **  
** **_1:41am today - NEO_ ** **: night taru <3**

There's a moment of dissonance as Itaru slides his phone back into his jeans pocket. The camera zooms out and pans up, he can see himself – shot from the shoulders up, gazing out the window and up towards the full moon, the few stars that scatter across the city sky. He catches the smile tugging at his lips reflecting in the glass, soft and sincere.

If a subtitle was going to come up over this cutscene, it would probably be something like:

' _ Is he looking at the same moon?'  _ or  _ 'Why did something so simple make my world feel so warm?' _ , but any sincerity is quickly dashed by the distance between Itaru and the moment. A gap wide enough for cynicism to slip through.  _ 'Pathetic protagonist. If this was actually a cutscene I'd be mashing the skip button..' _

The heartbeat in his pocket drives the point home. Who's pathetic enough to set a heartbeat vibration pattern for a crush? That's some teenage girl level bullshit. And yet, four heartbeats in total. Irresistible temptation that has his hand reaching into his sweatpant pockets, past the gum wrappers and lint.

His full-brightness, blue-and gold KniRoun lockscreen lights his face just as the name next to the messages lights up his face in the most inconvenient way.

“Fuck you, Banri,” he mutters, opening the LIME app. Banri's profile picture is some backwards cap fuckboy e-boy selfie. Supposed to be ironic, succeeding and failing all at once. “Fuck you and your stupid perfect face. Miss me with this gay shit.”

**_1:46am today - NEO_ ** **: yo also** **  
** **_1:46am today - NEO_ ** **: lets run chain hall tmrw without the guild** **  
** **_1:47am today - NEO_ ** **: we can do it with 2 ez if u play support** **  
** **_1:47am today - NEO_ ** **: k gnight for realz <3**

Mayday. Mayday. He has been  _ hit.  _ The 'gay shit' has landed right on target, speeding up his heartbeat. The cutscene trigger, the thing had initially set the sparkle-filter over his vision and made his chest feel tight.

**_1:48am today_ ** **\- Taruchi: i'll use that new support/DPS alt should be all g** **  
** **_1:48am today_ ** **\- Taruchi: night**

His traitorous thumb lingers over the heart emoji, refusing to move on from the idea. What if it wasn't a mistake? One was an accident, a joke. Twice was... Twice, is? What the hell is twice? And why does it matter?

Maybe, because there's something in this. Not just in having an equal match on any playing field, a rival on the streaming stage. Epic battles in which fast fingers feel as deadly as sharp blades and insults burn and crackle in the air; the liquid lightning of their perfect teamwork, Itaru's lazy laugh matching Banri's deeper, raspy one.

It'd be easier if it was just that, huh? How was Itaru supposed to know that shitty easy mode streamer would be a painful reminder of just how good it feels to wake up to a good morning text and be compelled to send one back. The feeling of seeing a meme and feeling a desperate need to share it not with  _ anyone  _ but with him. The 3am conversations about existential garbage. Worst and best of all, the little snippets of irl details that slip through the cracks until real life and online bleed together.

Banri's phantom seemed to climb out of the computer screen and hover over his shoulder all day.  _ 'I should tell Banri this, I should show Banri this. I wonder how Banri's doing, is he skipping out on class again?'  _ Pressure that eases only when Itaru slips him a text in a precious 'gaming break' or snaps him a photo of the packed evening commute with some complaint attached. So mundane, such normie bullshit, the sense that they're touching each other's lives every day in the smallest of ways. Every word, every picture like a hand reaching through a rip in space and time-

_ “Ugh.  _ Fine. You get one heart, loser,” Itaru mutters to his phone, taking the plunge.

**_1:50am today_** – **Taruchi: <3**

Just one, not a new routine. Nothing at all like the time they just slipped from the odd meme and co-stream to talking every day, to good morning/good night texts, to those ‘how was your days’, the in-jokes.    
  
When the heartbeat pattern buzzes into his palm, all of a sudden he’s not so sure.

**_1:52am today_** – **NEO: yo how many itaru affection points is a heart emoji** **  
****_1:52am today_** – **Taruchi: you're not even close to my H scene. give up now** **  
****_1:53am today_** – **NEO: what abt the meet in real life scene?**

A quick-draw in reverse, Itaru shuts off his phone screen mere milliseconds after he's read the message. Bile rises in his throat as Itaru looks out over the city. His fifth-floor apartment view seems less like a shoujo cityscape now and more like a long stretch of tall, grey prison-boxes and gross yellow streetlights.

It's a terrible idea. A no-good, bad, awful, fucking disastrous piece of shit idea. Some boundaries should never be crossed, right? Some secrets should never be spilled. Meeting with Banri would mean going out into that piss-poor, normie filled world full of boxes he'll never fit into without a mask and a script he's practiced to perfection.

Itaru sits back down at his gaming chair and swivels around and around. Would he need a script for Banri? Would Banri notice if he had one?

**_1:56am today_** – **Taruchi: get off my route. irl taruchi is a disappointment** **  
****_1:56am today_** – **NEO: nah im good**

**_Neo is typing..._ **

**_1:57am today_** – **NEO: even if it turns out youre not the no stamina would-be-NEET if ya didnt need cash for gacha rude bitch twink taruchi irl** **  
****_1:58am today_** – **NEO: still wanna meet. lots of good retro arcades in akiba and its not far from ur place, right?**

The scripts are there all thrown in a pile in his head, gamer-rage and streamer-snark, bruised-ego – but he doesn't go for them. Itaru wishes he was offended, instead of smiling so hard his face hurts.

**_1:58am today_** – **Taruchi: flatterer. i'll think about it** **  
****_1:58am today_** – **Taruchi: goodnight banri** **  
****_1:58am today_** – **NEO: where's my heart :(**

Itaru rolls his eyes, but he's still smiling.

**_1:59am today_** – **Taruchi: GOODNIGHT BANRI** **  
****2:01** ** _am today_** – **Taruchi: <3**

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Banita week!! I love these two so so much, it was my firs time writing these two and it was kind of nerve-wracking but here we are. Thanks to Takki for betaing!


End file.
